


Rhiannon in Red

by audkingston



Category: Ghost Adventures (TV)
Genre: Dark, F/M, Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audkingston/pseuds/audkingston
Summary: After making a deal to save her family's farm, Rhiannon is plunged into a world quite unlike her own. She seeks help from a team of paranormal investigators to discover her end of the deal was far more sinister than she realized.
Kudos: 3





	1. Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> I ought to mention this work only touches on the GA Crew on an as-needed basis.

_rHe turned back to me and I saw the sweat roll from his chin and tip of his nose. The fire in his eyes smouldered, emanating pain and frustration as he desperately fought for control of his body. I waited, terrified, for a sign he was winning the fight, though he looked wary, sickly. “You don’t have to fight it,” I whispered, watching him turn away and drop his chin to his bloodied bare chest. “He will rip you apart if you keep it up.”_

_Falling to all fours, I watched my only friend clench his weepy eyes shut and let his head hang between his shoulders. Before him, was a drop from his tenement building into freefall, sixteen stories. I knew what was below us but dared not look over._

_His body endured the hellfire burning within so long that I watched sweat vaporize into the air as it trickled down his body. I watched his muscles tremble and felt the raspy breath rumble out of his throat. “I’ll miss you so, so much. I can’t…I can’t.”_

_And before I had a chance to speak, he pushed himself forward over the edge of the cliff into the chaos in the streets below us. The screaming from the ground started before he hit the pavement and the thud of his body impacting cement was unmistakably similar to paint splattering a canvas. I was too shocked to scream as the stark realization hit me that the only person in the world that I held dearly was free from his suffering…and I was left to clean up the mess._

I groaned after waking to realize I had an hour before my 7:30 am alarm and the prospect of falling back asleep was slim. The extra hour of sleep would have been nice but the nightmare I forced myself awake from wasn’t worth suffering through. Never once before did I dream about the man who plunged over the side of a building, but in-dream I guess I knew him better than most of the people I’d come to know over 27 years. 

With multiple disturbed emotions clouding my train of thought, I laid in bed and stared at my ceiling for the rest of the hour, finally pulling the blanket off at the intensity of the alarm, and crept to the bathroom to pee.

The sun hadn’t yet risen past the horizon, allowing the intense glow of orange to peek through my patio blinds. Sunrises were supposed to bring a sense of awakening and optimism for a brand new day—normally I felt that way but something about today was already different. Besides the nightmare, I figured it was a wine headache that roused me from a dead sleep. I was still processing the previous evening’s endeavours, most of which I’d forgotten from the wine.

The sunlight soon found its way to the kitchen where it illuminated my dining table, upon which were four sticky, stained wine glasses. The sunlight then lit up the chandelier’s millions of hanging ornaments and caused a prismatic rainbow display on the walls and ceiling. Blinding for a moment in the early morning haze, but beautiful.

I tasted stale wine at the back of my throat and considered brushing my teeth, but didn’t want to ruin the first swig of fresh coffee with minty toothpaste and mouthwash. H _ow foolish_ , I thought. _Who gets blackout drunk on a Wednesday_? I did. And I was way too old for it.

Leaning against my counter, I waited for the coffee maker to switch on at its usual time interval, too tired and groggy to find the motivation to flick the switch and start it. The headache had finally caught up to me. Soon enough, through the pounding pulse inside my skull, the coffee maker roared to life and I was engulfed by the aroma of freshly brewed java.

After pouring my first cup, I sat at my regular spot at the Cherrywood table, facing my balcony, trying to gather my thoughts and decide just what I’d do today. It was Thursday but unemployment was not new to me, and the only daily struggle I faced was keeping myself busy day-to-day. Thursday was typically my day to call a friend and go walking in one of many nice neighbourhoods in the area. I anticipated a wonderful day ahead, headache or not.

I’d made a couple of slices of toast with crab apple jam to go with the coffee and in silence, without even the dull chatter of my television, I sipped from my cup and nibbled slowly at the toast and waited for the caffeine to take effect.

Pickle, my four-year-old exotic Persian cat, came out from my room with a chirp and jumped up in my lap, purring intensely. Probably waiting for me to fill his bowl with breakfast, but he couldn’t pass up a good morning pat-down.

Pickle came running to his dish and started gulping back the kibble and, while doing so, gave quick little satisfied chirps. I patted his head again and poured myself a second cup of coffee.

Across the courtyard in the building mirroring mine, my neighbour started his day too. He frequented smoking on his porch, sometimes at erratic times during the day and night, and he always seemed to have some form of company. This year would be four years since I became his neighbour across the courtyard, but I hadn’t yet formally met him. I knew him as The Guy from Across the Courtyard and that was that.

My attention redirected to a belch that suddenly erupted from Pickle, who sat by my feet licking his chops. Stifling a laugh, I let him out to the patio where I kept his litter box. We lived on the fourth floor so I trusted Pickle wouldn’t jump to his death. My handsome fuzz needed to soak up some sunlight, so I left the patio door open a few inches and proceeded to turn on the television for my daily dose of news, traffic, and stocks. In the back of my mind, I recalled my room faintly smelling like body odour and stale air so I noted to hit the room once the morning news had finished.

A ding sounded from the bedroom, a text tone from my phone, identified as my mother by the individual tone I selected for her—a whinnying horse as a reminder of home. As my mother was well known for doing, she needed a favour and disguised it as an invitation to spend a few days out at our farm—a 140-acre estate. I knew she needed a lot of help with the cattle and chicken coops and I didn’t mind driving out to help a couple of days of the week, especially now since I had little to keep myself busy with and no excuse to make up for it; however, I minded how hard she worked to serve herself before anyone else. I felt no guilt with my bitterness towards her quirks, as my feelings had been communicated many times before. She refused to change and I accepted it.

I began typing a response but didn’t know what to answer, as I wasn’t up for hauling hay and shovelling manure with a wine hangover. If she didn’t need immediate help I’d try for a few more hours of sleep to rid myself of it before heading over. _What time?_ I hit send.

 _Whenever, no work, just need some company._ There was an anxious flutter in my gut at the tone of the text. My mother, lonely? She had her cows, her hens, her barn cats. Each animal on the farm had a name. All these critters and the witch who raised me was asking for my company. For only a fraction of a second, I entertained the idea that something was wrong and the animals just didn’t cut it. I knew Pickle didn’t cut it on my off days, which is why I had girlfriends.

Out of the abyss of my annoyance, I faintly recalled a memory where mother took me out of school to bring me on an ice cream date. It was bittersweet. I remember being no older than six or seven when I beat up a kid at school who had stomped on a bird with a broken wing. The duty teacher called my mother to pick me up. I remember waiting for the scolding of a lifetime, but she took me for ice cream instead. I couldn’t quite ever figure it out and eventually, I knew I’d break down and ask her. _Swinging by in 30 mins._ I hit send and set my phone down with a heavy sigh.

Today wasn’t my day for things I didn’t feel like dealing with.

There was about a third of a pot of coffee leftover that I dumped into a travel mug with a splash of Irish Crème I kept in the fridge. I topped the mug off with store-bought cream and shook the concoction after securing the lid. It was just past nine and supermarkets were open, so I stopped off and grabbed us a pint each of our respective favourite flavours. For later, I snagged another bottle of cheap wine for tonight’s new episode release of _Ghost Adventures_ on Travel Channel. It was my Thursday ritual—providing I’d get back home on time tonight.

I drove a ’96 Toyota Camry, nothing special. The insurance rates have never been cheaper but each year the fuel economy takes a nosedive and the whine in the brakes gets louder day by day. All in all, it gets me to and fro without incident. Truth be told, I had money in the bank to buy something comfortable; winters alone in Massachusetts were bitter cold, and for this reason, I despised manual start—the engine frequently makes a habit of sputtering and spitting for a key cycle or two before turning over with a rumble that might’ve woken the dead. But the jalopy was mine and my guilt of getting rid of the Camry would far outweigh my feelings of triumph over buying a brand new car.

To my surprise, she roared to life on the first try and I pulled out into the street towards the grocery store. It was still early enough in the morning that checkout times were at efficient enough speeds so lineups didn’t have time to form.

I snagged a pint of BJ’s chocolate chip cookie dough and a caramel praline for mom and made my way to the wine aisle before the shame had time to kick in. Quarter past ten, and my arms were crowded with wine and ice cream. I probably resembled the dictionary definition of a disaster and that was fine. At least the cashier had enough sense to keep wisecracks to herself.

The farm was a twenty-minute drive from my apartment downtown. Over the years the hedges around the property line had grown out of control and the grass needed a cutting, which made the driveway all the more difficult to pick out. Mother seemed in over her head with the farm, which pulled a bit harshly on my guilt strings. All the same, she was a bitter woman who deserved little respect for how she treated anyone who graced her doorstep, my father most of all.

He’d been dead in the ground for a decade now, probably resting a lot more comfortably than he did while he was alive, as often as mother barked at him. I envied the pile of bones laid to rest in the orchard, his grave marked by a makeshift cross decorated with his name scrawled in black marker. I missed my father. Burying him on the property always unsettled me, but it was his dying wish to be laid to rest on the estate. Sometimes it felt like he was still kicking around the barn.

I parked in my usual spot just outside the house and said a few silent prayers before going inside. It was overcast today; the occasional droplet of rain pelted my windshield and evaporated immediately. Mom waited in the kitchen, her gaze meeting mine from the window above the sink. Something felt wrong as her usual scowl morphed into unadulterated misery. I gathered my wits and made for the porch door and remembered to make sure the latch was properly shut. Funny how a person remembers things after so long. _Like riding a bicycle_ , I mused.

“Hey, mom,” I called out, pulling my shoes off and tossing them aside. I could smell kitchen garbage and patches of cat urine coming from the inside door; I was only here last week and it did not look like this. “Everything okay?” I asked, finding her standing at the sink, scrubbing the hell out of a coffee mug. She was preoccupied and hadn’t yet acknowledged me entering the house.

Mom was silent—even though her words were often acidic, she never lost her voice. I was on edge now but had forced myself to take a seat at the kitchen table. Another moment passed and she turned to face me. I gasped as streaks of purple and green lined her cheek. Red had taken over the white in her eye. I said nothing but felt my heart skip a few beats.

She pulled a chair out from the table and slowly sat. I could tell she was sore, at least from the waist down. Hundreds of scenarios raced through my mind, a hundred different things that could’ve been responsible for her pain. I waited for her to speak. “There was something wrong with the animals. Stampede from the barn. One of the neighbours, Pat, found me and brought me to the hospital.” She paused, bitter. “The bill’s come due. I’ll go bankrupt. Should have died in the muck.”

I cocked my head, trying to take it all in. “Wait, hold on. You were caught in a stampede? What the hell had happened? God, I hate to say it, but you look awful.”

“I know, it certainly smarts. Christ, I haven’t given a proper fuck about this farm in half a decade and now I’m stuck with it, and about to go bankrupt because the cows decided to go full tilt out the gate with me right behind it. Still don’t have a clue why. Not that I give a care.”

I glanced out the kitchen window to the barn where I could see the tips of the bull’s horns as he paced lazily around the paddock. He looked muddier than usual, an obvious sign mother had been down for the count for a few days. She was a tough old battle-axe, but I didn’t think she could survive a stampede.

I couldn’t be mad at her for it, but it irked me that she didn’t tell me until now. I was the only family she had left, and vice versa, so I figured as estranged as our relationship was, maybe a visit to the hospital would’ve been nice. “I can’t believe you’re up moving around already. How bad were your injuries?”

She shrugged. I offered her a pint of ice cream but she motioned at a couple of broken teeth that might not have been fit for chewing pralines. “Pat said I was tossed to the side of the paddock like a ragdoll so I was spared, save for a concussion and some superficial bruising. Doctors couldn’t believe it.”

“I can’t believe it either.” Mother’s words might have been acidic but often time she lied to cover up her true feelings about something and never admitted to it. Over time, her hard external shell broke down and I could see a frail husk of a woman I once feared with my life. “Are you sure there isn’t more to this story?”

An exasperated sigh escaped her lips. “Rhiannon, I’m tired. I can’t keep doing this, this farming life. It’s not for me. It was your father’s dream and he sunk every penny he had into it. I thought about selling it a few times, more often now than when he died. Pat was interested, as was Helen from down the end of the road.” She paused and sipped some water. “Well, until the cows started up that bullshit, this land was worth five hundred. The house tacked on another two. The equipment and animals brought it up to a nifty package of one million, all said and done. But no one wants wayward beasts.” She sniffled. “Now I have a farm I don’t want, animals I can’t feed, field work weeks overdue. Nothing to show for it but a semi-permanent tattoo and a ringing in my ear.”

“Jesus, mom. I’m sorry. But you said the land was worth all that money, the cows dropped the value? How is that possible?”

She cleared her throat and drank more water. “Pat came by the hospital two days after it happened to fill me in on the rest. He said when he got here the animals were trying to get off the land, out of the fence. Something was getting the animals worked up but he couldn’t figure it out. He reached out to the department of agriculture and the nearest livestock veterinarian and told them to come down to test the animals, but if it’s something transmittable making them behave this way, then they’d have to be culled and burned. Can’t risk it.”

The bull continued his saunter around the paddock. In a few moments, I’d go toss some hay for him, but this story was just too strange to walk away from. “So how many cows escaped? Or did any of them get out? And was it just the cows that were weird?”

She chortled. “Define ‘weird’, Rhiannon. Animals are all a bit weird, aren’t they?” she paused. “The barn cats were nowhere to be found just before the stampede. Chickens were quiet too. Quieter than normal. I suppose that’s weird.” She paused again. “Pat said only one cow left the farm. Managed to get under the wire somewhere, and scraped her back to high hell. I just can’t think of anything that would have set them off enough to panic like that.”

“Neighbours firing guns?”

Mom shrugged. “All the animals are used to that. These cows couldn’t give less than a rat’s ass about anything besides the next feed.”

I opened my pint of cookie dough ice cream and spooned a hunk into my mouth. “When’s the vet supposed to show up? I can be here for that if you need.”

“Tuesday morning sometime. Earliest I could arrange.” I could see stress cracks forming in the smooth porcelain of her discoloured face. My otherwise unbreakable mother, about to implode. I had never seen her like this before, and truthfully I was both heartbroken and terrified. “God, I just should have liquidated this heap when I had the chance.”

I set my pint down, half-eaten without having noticed. “You had potential buyers but now that the cattle are in question. I get what you’re saying.” I stopped myself before I tried to make promises I could never keep. “Worst case scenario you have to cull the cattle. Then what, you sell the land for a profit and the equipment with the land as a bonus. Cut your losses and walk away.”

Mom scoffed, insulted. “It’s more than just the money, Rhiannon. I’ve lived on this property for almost forty years. It was supposed to be a family inheritance and it changed when your father died because he made it perfectly iron clad that in his passing I’d inherit the land myself and do with it as I see fit. I owe half of what I’ll make from it to the hospital.”

After a moment of silence, I broke it with a snicker. “Maybe the land itself knows you want to sell it. Maybe dad’s telling you not to.”

There was a look my mother would give me that might’ve turned Medusa to stone. She only ever used it when I joked about Christianity, ridiculous things, and my father. I assumed she would never resign herself to even crack a smile. “I held onto his dream for fifteen years after he died. I have earned my rest, Rhiannon, but you wouldn’t know that. All this time you’ve spent holed up in your apartment with your luxuries and freedoms, you’ve forgotten what it means to break your back each day.”

I felt my face flush warm. I was used to a verbal beat down but I knew where to draw the line in the sand. “I think you’ve forgotten what little compassion and patience you ever had in your time holed up here in this farmhouse, mom.” My hands began to shake as my anxiety skyrocketed. I wasn’t a confrontational type, but I knew how to hold my ground. “I moved on from this place as soon as I could because I couldn’t stand being stuck in the presence of someone who couldn’t get over the past.”

I expected further blowup. Instead, my mother burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Rhiannon. I’m just so tired.” And she looked tired. Exhausted, like she hadn’t slept in over a decade.

“What can I do to help, mom?”


	2. Cut Off

I found my mother’s bottle of prescription Xanax in the bathroom. She kept it “extra safe” on the top shelf next to her hair and makeup products that she seldom used nowadays. I could tell by the multiple layers of dust wafting with the draft from the furnace duct. I pocketed a couple for myself and grabbed a tablet with a Dixie cup full of water.

She’d gone to lay in bed for the rest of the day as she lost all colour in her face in the kitchen earlier, which to me was an indication that she hadn’t been sleeping or even eating properly. I felt tremendous guilt, even though I knew I shouldn’t have. She was not yet at the age where she was losing her independence, but I knew the loneliness every day was becoming a constant drain on her soul.

After administering the Xanax and ensuring there was little light coming in through her bedroom window, I made my way back downstairs to tidy up the chaos my mother left in her miserable wake. For the most part, I could sympathise; I knew full well how the weight of depression could wear a person down. I remarked under my breath, even though there was no one around to hear it, “this gives ‘depression nesting’ a whole new meaning, jeez.”

I figured it was unwise to remove memorabilia of my father from the room, even though the constant reminder that he was gone was counterintuitive to helping mother’s mental stability. Truthfully, she needed out of this place for a while. I was capable of putting her up in a nice motel room for a while until we could get the property sold and sorted. In the meantime, this would be a massive undertaking, and before I had touched anything I decided that a trip back to town to grab some of my old packing totes might not have been a bad idea.

I left a note scribbled in black marker on the smudge stained fridge that I was gone but would be returning if in case mother went downstairs in a Xanax-induced stupor. _Please don’t fall down the stairs_ , I prayed, before locking and shutting the heavy wooden door behind me.

To the east of the farm, I noticed the sky was darkening as a thick cloud cover began rolling in. I hadn’t anticipated a storm, according to the forecast over the radio anyhow. But anyone from Indiana knew that if the weather wasn’t ideal, it’d change within the hour. Or so I thought until the clouds overtook me and I was suddenly driving in darkness. A wicked bolt of lightning shot across the sky just above me, and in awe, I slowed the car down to a stop on the side of the dirt road. Mouth agape, I watched the few trees along the road begin to bow and buckle just before a wave of baseball-sized hailstones came crashing down, bursting in magnificent patterns across my windshield. The sounds were deafening.

Once the worst of the storm was over, at least after the hail stopped, I stepped out of the car to check for any damage to my headlights. Another bolt of lightning lit the sky up as though it were broad daylight. There was no rain to accompany the hail, but the air had a slight static charge as the hair on the back of my neck as well as my arms began to stand up. In a few moments the sky had cleared up as if the storm didn’t happen at all, the only remaining evidence being the massive balls of ice laying intermittently along the ground.

I pulled back onto the road in silence. I hadn’t bothered to turn the radio on, or even my music, as I just wanted to get home, grab the totes, and get back to the farm. I noted to fill Pickle’s dish with enough food to last him at least a day, as I anticipated spending the night at the farm. It was safe to assume mother would sleep through the night with the Xanax in her system. I knew it wasn’t the greatest sleep aid she had, but I justified with how worked up she became over the farm and decided a nice afternoon nap was the best thing she could do for herself.

It was just past noon when I hit city limits, where much to my surprise I found little traffic. “Rush hour must have taken a chill pill too,” I remarked, as I finally switched on the radio for some background noise. There was some static, which I attributed to the hail storm having knocked my antenna out of orientation. I paid little attention to whatever noise was coming through the radio, as my immediate attention was redirected to emergency lights on the horizon. My hackles were up, being that this day had been chock full of strange occurrences. It looked like a routine traffic stop, but as I pulled up to the checkpoint, something felt wrong. Extremely wrong.

I cranked my window down, cursing the rusted gears, glancing up at a clean-cut police officer who looked less than pleased to be manning a traffic stop. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Where are you headed?”

I cleared my throat. Police didn’t typically make me nervous, but the feeling that something was wrong was multiplying by the minute. “Is something wrong? I’m heading home, to my apartment. It’s just up ahead.”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to turn your vehicle around. We’ve closed off this block as well as five other blocks to reroute traffic away from this residential area.”

At that point, I half expected Jesus Christ himself to descend from the Heavenly skies with word of the end of times. “There’s no way at all I can get back home?”

“I’m afraid not.” I could tell the officer knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on, but I’d already heard and seen enough for today. “If you’ll please follow the pylons and make a U-turn at this intersection. I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Your property manager will be in touch with you once we’ve cleared the area.”

I had a few friends in another apartment a block from mine, so once I turned around I sent a message of inquiry about the road blockade. I didn’t anticipate a response right away, but my curiosity for odd happenstances was getting the best of me, causing my gaze to constantly shift back to the screen of the phone, waiting for it to light up.

I didn’t get a response until I pulled into the Target parking lot next door to the liquor store that I frequented. It happened to be just outside the blockaded area of my neighbourhood, so sometimes miracles did happen. Corey, my longest-term friend from middle school, responded with nothing but a disappointing question mark. I, so I didn’t respond and left my phone in the glove box.

Target was busy enough for the typical lunch hour. At this time the bulk of shoppers were elderly which made my ability to in-and-out within fifteen minutes nearly obsolete. I once again prayed before heading inside, figuring at least I’d get a break from the humidity in the air-conditioned big box store.

Boy, was I wrong. Inside Target had to have been worse than outside. The cashiers seemed far from impressed, some of them fanning themselves in between item scans. I groaned loudly as I made for the housewares aisle where I’d hopefully find some deals on rubber totes. For a moment, I imagined I wasn’t the only adult that griped about the price of storage containers. 

I picked up four 26 gallon totes and carried them to the register for, hopefully, a quick checkout.

Boy, was I wrong. And it finally clued in for me that the power had gone out, which explained the lack of air conditioning and the growing sense of hot grouchiness in the air. It didn’t take a nitwit to figure out that hot, muggy weather brought out the ugly in people. I felt bad for the red shirts because there was no way in hell those polo shirts were breathable. I was also incredibly grateful I hadn’t gone shopping at the end of the day when all the armpits in-store were far riper and rank.

Despite circumstances not being in my favour, I made it back to the car and stuffed the totes into the trunk as best as they’d fit. At that point, I felt my hunger levels spike but cemented the thought in my mind that there was plenty of food in the fridge, back on the farm.

But before I departed from town once more, still cursing my luck that I couldn’t top up Pickle’s dishes and grab a change of clothes, I had a sudden urge to grab a snack as a precaution. There was a Wendy’s on the route leaving town, so I picked up a couple of chicken burgers and made my way once more for the farm.

As suspected, mom was sound asleep upstairs. I erased my note from the fridge and put one of the chicken burgers on the top shelf inside for later. Then I peeled open the second one and took a ravenous bite. I wasn’t usually big on fast food, however, I was considering a do-over and going back to bed myself. Then again, there was nothing like a nap on my mother’s old sofa. It smelled like home and home smelled like rhubarb pie and cow patties.

I suspected the rest of the afternoon would betray my desire to be productive, as the clouds grew darker on the horizon. If the wind picked up I figured there’d be another storm, and hopefully one without the murderous hail. I set an alarm on my phone and tucked it under the throw pillow of the old floral print couch. I remarked for a moment before drifting off, about how the cushions felt as firm as the day my father brought it home. And as I basked in such cathartic nostalgia, I felt my eyelids getting heavier, and eventually, the slipped into nothingness to the sound of the blowing wind.

I dreamt about fire. Standing in it, burning alive. _FIRE!_ I screamed aloud.

Or, at least I thought I did, but mid-wakeup I jolted upright and felt an uncomfortable twinge in my spine. I shivered and called out for my mother, as I’d forgotten for the moment that she’d taken a Xanax hours ago, and would remain unconscious for a few more hours at least. Disoriented, I scrambled for my phone and groaned at the realization it had died. I was annoyed after remembering I made sure there was sufficient charge before setting the alarm. And for a few moments of shame, I also realized that having immediate access to the time was one of the things people took for granted.

My mother was superstitious and kept only digital clocks in the house, as she was taught by my grandmother that a broken clock would bring bad luck. Her superstition worsened when my father died, and I couldn’t imagine the things plaguing her thoughts since her incident by the barn. I prayed her sleep was dreamless so she could rest with ease.

I felt stiff throughout my neck and spine. I barely had the energy to lift myself off the couch for a glass of coppery tap water. As suspected, I glanced through the grimy inside of the kitchen window and watched thick raindrops pelt the house in torrential waves. Once the refrigerator’s motor silenced and the house fell completely still, I could feel the drumming of the raindrops against the roof. Lightning lit up the kitchen, followed immediately by a crack of ear-splitting thunder. I shuddered and filled a glass with water, checking the clock on the stove—no, it was dead too.

The whole house was electrically dead. I went downstairs to make sure the breakers hadn’t tripped. I recalled many times in my childhood where massive thunderstorms would tamper with the electricity in this old farmhouse. As a child, I was terrified of lightning, but the darkness of the basement still sent shivers down my spine. The walls absorbed decades of damp air, and in the corners of the walls and ceiling grew black mould and mildew. Mother moved the washing machines upstairs after father died, so the basement was unkempt. The only evidence anyone had been down here in ten years was the desire paths of boot prints in heavy dust and grime.

I jumped at the feeling of a spider web catching on my ear. Less than half of the lights down in that crypt were functional when there was power. Mother moved the flashlights upstairs, I realized, as I continued across the unsettlingly dark space. The breaker box was above some shelves filled with mostly junk and a few boxes that I remembered were full of extremely old black and white pictures. I felt the urge to flip through some of the photos, but the light was too dim for me to see clearly. I noted to bring the boxes upstairs to flip through once I figured out how to restore the power. My only saving grace at the time was the flashing of lightning through three small windows.

To my luck and immediate relief, there was a box of matches behind the box of photos. They felt damp but still ignited, and that was all I needed. I lifted the firelight to the panel of the breaker box and analyzed all the switches. My father’s familiar handwriting was clear and black, slightly faded, but still legible in dim light. I felt the heat of the fire creep towards my fingers and blew out the matches before lighting several more.

Much to my frustration, there was nothing amiss about the breaker box. I wondered if there was a local outage, other farms affected by the storm, so I grabbed one of four boxes of photos and retreated upstairs to the safety of at least some daylight.

The rain had slowed down in the time I spent downstairs, but it hadn’t completely stopped. Through the kitchen window, I didn’t have a clear shot of the nearest neighbour. There was a window in the attic I remembered that had a perfect view of the farmhouse across the road. I wasn’t sure if the attic was accessible, or if it too had been made obsolete other than to collect most of the dust and manure particles.

As anticipated, the attic door was bolted shut and the pull-cord had been cut off. It was curious, though I imagined it was for the best since the ladder was in questionable shape when I was barely tall enough to reach it. The same urge to look through the old photos manifested as an itch to reopen the attic and take a peek. I cringed at the thought of more spider webs but the itch prevailed, and I made it my mission to restore the power, peruse the photos, and get into that attic. Frankly, I was most annoyed with the inaccessible attic window. Mother’s telephone was a landline and I prayed it still worked, despite my doubt that mother kept any of the neighbours’ contact numbers readily accessible.

The lightning, I noticed, finally let up too. The last of the rain was just heavier than a drizzle, so I stepped outside for a moment to see if I could catch a glimpse of light coming from down the road. There was very little traffic, save for farm equipment and ATVs on the daily. I was accustomed to ambient tractor noise and the familiar grunts from cows and pigs. There was nothing of the sort. Just dead, empty silence.

Now properly annoyed, I made my way back inside and tried the landline that hung on the wall below the useless mounted digital clock. I picked up the receiver to find no dial tone. Just more dead silence. “What the fuck is going on here?” I muttered to myself.

Directly above me was the half bathroom attached to the master bedroom, of which I heard the creaking of a door hinge and footsteps that stopped as soon as they started. I called out for mother again, received no response, and waited for her to come downstairs. I didn’t bother lighting any more matches.

After the sound of a toilet flush, I heard the creaking of the stairs as my mother ambled downwards in the dark. She found me seated, one hand holding her forehead, the other clutching the wall for dear life. “Rhiannon, you’re still here.” Her tone was off. Not groggy or slurred like one might normally have been if they’d just woken from a Xanax nap. It was agitated, blunt. Aggressive. “I figured you’d have left me here again.”

I cleared my throat. My hackles were rising. “I put you to bed, remember? There’s no way in hell I’d leave you here while you’re drugged up, that’d be irresponsible and silly.”

She scoffed and took a seat. The nap didn’t help her mood. “Where are all the lights? Why are you sitting in the dark?”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I napped on the couch and woke up to no power.” I paused, glancing back to the basement doorway. “The breakers were fine but the landline is dead. I couldn’t tell if the neighbours had power either.” 

Saying nothing, mother glanced through the window. There was a break in the clouds about a mile away, a red glow lighting up what was left visible on the property’s horizon. “I’ll never sleep tonight.”

I rolled my eyes. “ _You_ were the one breaking down in my arms. I figured you could’ve used the rest.” I previously made my mind up to spend the night, but now I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t feel like being subjected to a grouch for the remainder of the dark, quiet evening. “Maybe I’ll turn in now. If you need anything, call me. You know, if your phone starts working again.”

Mother didn’t object or so much as look at me as I gathered my leftover Wendy’s and the box of photos on the counter. As I was about to head out the door, she called to me. “Just forget about getting into that attic.”


End file.
